A Brighter Fear (5 page)

Whatever happened to Sacha? Part I

O
CTOBER 1999

Sacha saw the car outside, waiting. Two men standing next to it. She knew who they were, that they had come for her. And she knew that the short walk out of the front doors of the law firm would be the last she would take in freedom for a long time.

In the middle of the foyer her feet paused and she thought for a moment. What could she do? Where could she go? What options did she have?

And she realised she had none.

Her fingers reached up to the necklace resting on her chest, stroking the green stone and the filigreed gold around it. And as she slipped it into her pocket, she stepped forward, across the foyer and out of the front doors. Away not just from the air-conditioning and comfortable office, but from her life and out into the searing heat and stark sunshine, to be taken away to whatever fate waited for her.

The bag went over her head and Baghdad disappeared from her view.

She didn’t scream, or shout for help.

She didn’t fight, or try to escape.

If they couldn’t have her, she knew they would take her family instead.

The handcuffs dug into her wrists. The air under the bag grew hot and moist; no space for her breath to escape, or fresh air to find its way in.

She closed her eyes, concentrating on her breathing, keeping herself calm. She thought of her friend Tariq watching her leave the office, worry marking his forehead. She hoped he would call her husband. She hoped her husband would explain everything to their daughter. She hoped one day she would see them again.

She listened to the street sounds quieten, heard the engine rev, the car accelerate. Behind her eyelids she imagined the journey, feeling and watching them turn, another junction, another road. She imagined the dust blowing up behind them, clogging the air, blocking out what lay behind.

She knew that soon the car would slow and turn off the main road; that it would stop, the engine would cut and the silence would embrace her. She knew where she would be.

She thought of the countless people who had travelled this way before her, and how few had made the journey back.

I don’t remember the soldier leaving. I just remember the empty space where he had been, the cup of coffee untouched on the table, and my hope that I had imagined the whole thing.

That hot July night was the last I spent in my house, my home, Aziz asleep on the floor instead of my papa in his bed.

I laid in my room with no sleep coming, thinking of all the what-ifs and if-onlys. The conversations I’d had with Papa about leaving Iraq, how the answer was always the same. How I would see clouds skip across his eyes, and see them bring the mist in.

“We cannot leave yet,” he would reply, “we must wait for Mama to return.”

I had watched my papa miss my mama for nearly four years. Only since the war began did I see him as a man missing his wife.

Who had shot him? Where had the bullet come from? A window? A roof? Had it been an Iraqi? A soldier? Why had Papa worked for these people? And I thought again about the American soldier. Surprised by him and his humanity.

Had it been worth it? Raiding that house? For so many deaths? I’d heard what people did to get to someone, to cause trouble, it happened all the time. Now, instead of reporting you to the Mukharabat, all they had to do was to mention the word ‘terrorism’ within American earshot and nod in someone’s direction. That was enough to get your house ransacked, your belongings trashed and your family arrested and kept without charge.

That word flickered open eyes of American soldiers, made their nationality and their patriotism seep down their arms to their hands holding their weapons and their fingers resting on their triggers. A modern-day American taboo word. A word that draws breath deeper and quicker than any four-letter word could. I played the soldier’s words over and over in my head.
Suspected
weapons dealer. My papa had died because of a
suspected
weapons dealer.

There was no easy segregation; the bad guys didn’t all wear black and weren’t all on the same side. This war, this
occupation
, had no lines drawn, still has no lines drawn. This is not yet a democracy in which we live.

Papa had told me he was scared for our future in Iraq, had said that if the country wasn’t already in civil war then it sure as hell was on its way; he said he could see no end in sight, that things would get worse before they could even start to get better. And now he wouldn’t see it, when finally, somewhere in the future, it was better.

I laid in the darkness, sleep avoiding me, trying to remember every conversation between me and Papa. Everything we had done together. Fix them permanently in my memory.

I remembered how people felt sorry for him after Mama left, how they were sympathetic, bringing us food or inviting us over. A man raising a child alone, how could he cope? Aziz took him out to coffee houses, and for walks along the banks of the Tigris. They talked in whispers, perched on edges of chairs, or in inconspicuous corners. When someone came near, they’d stop, light a cigarette and throw away a comment about our wonderful leader.

And I remember, will always remember, how much he loved her. But as I wondered that last night I spent in my house, after he’d been killed, if now they were finally together, I felt lonelier and more vulnerable than ever before. Neither parents there to protect me. And I didn’t want Mama to be dead, not because I didn’t want them to be together, but because, selfishly, I didn’t want to be alone.

And still with my eyes closed, my memory showed me those evenings me and Papa had spent together in the basement as bombs fell above us. I remembered marvelling over his stories, his voice lifting me from that dingy basement while the bombs fell and took me flying around this city in his time of youth. I flew over the markets as he ran through, a child of nine, chasing his friends. I hovered over street corners as my papa at twelve kicked a football through the neighbour’s window. I glided through the golden sky as my twenty-two-year-old Papa smiled at a beautiful young woman with dark, shiny hair and green eyes, and gently took her hand.

His stories had filled my imagination, taken me away from the bombs and the guns, the screams and the crying. They had lifted me.

And I couldn’t believe I would never see him again. I wanted to speak to him. I wanted to ask him if it hurt, wanted to ask him if he was all right now, tell him that I missed him already, and that I loved him still.

I gave up on sleep; no peace, no calm to be found. From my bedside drawer I pulled a photo album and, tucking it under my arm, I wandered through the house in darkness, a little light peeking through windows, shadows and memories stretching across rooms. I stood in the kitchen, a drink in my hand, staring around at where my world had fallen apart only a few hours ago. My body ached with grief.

I headed to Papa’s room, pulling aside the sheets, climbing into the empty bed. And as I opened the album, as I stared down at the photographs, old and faded, I again thought back to when he was alive. To when he pulled open an old box and took out this album that now sat on my lap.

And as I leafed through it, poring again over the photographs, it was as if he was sitting next to me, as if I could still hear his voice, and I could remember exactly what we’d shared that day.

“This is from when I was studying in London,” he said. “I took hundreds of photos, amazed at being in a different country, another culture to explore, with its history at my feet and in the air around me.”

He turned to the middle of the book and I leaned forwards, squinting at the photographs, at the two people who smiled out at me.

“Is that Mama?” I asked.

He nodded. “That’s where we met. I was in my last year. Your Mama, she was a year behind me. We’d both been living there a while, but only met when I had ten weeks left.” He shrugged. “A wonderful ten weeks.”

“But...”

“I know,” he replied. “Over two thousand miles from home. What are the chances?”

His smile filled the room.

“We went everywhere together: the Tower of London, Hampton Court, Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Park, Piccadilly Circus. We spent days in museums and galleries, a grey afternoon in Trafalgar Square, rain running down Nelson’s Column, bouncing off the lion statues; a bright morning in Hyde Park, waiting in the sunshine at Speaker’s Corner to see who would be speaking, and getting heckled, and about what. For me, it was amazing, inspirational, shocking too, the freedom unimaginable to me before. The freedom to speak, act, think, travel, to hold opinions. At first I thought they must value and relish it so, but soon realised that they didn’t; that was their way of life, the way they had known it for lifetimes. And I thought perhaps they puzzled over our lack of democracy and freedom as I did theirs.”

He paused and looked away from his memories and back to me.

“It wasn’t that English heritage, architecture, history… was better than Iraqi, it was just different, and new to me.”

We pored over the pictures of them. Together. So young. So happy. “Mama looks so different. She’s not wearing her necklace,” I said to him, remembering the green stone reflecting the light, the gold around it sparkling.

“That was before I gave it to her,” Papa replied.

He sighed and flicked the page over. “I should’ve shown you these years ago. I don’t know why I didn’t. Here.”

He pushed the album to me, tapping his finger on a photograph. “Outside St Paul’s Cathedral,” he said with a smile. “A typical English day. Sunny, warm, grey, overcast, drizzly – all in one day. But a fabulous day for visiting the Cathedral.”

I looked up from the photo to my papa, a lightness over his face, his expression lifted with his memories. I saw in his eyes that he wasn’t in the room with me any more, he was back in time, twenty or so years, with his girlfriend, walking back into St Paul’s Cathedral, in London. I stared at him, into his eyes, wanting to fall inside and look at his memories, listen to his memories.

“We’d been so busy with studying and exams that we’d done little but look at the inside of textbooks and journals for weeks on end. But finally I walked out of my last exam, out of the stuffy hall and into the sunshine where your Mama waited for me. With a mood as light as air, we laughed and joked as we walked from the university and on to a train, not knowing or caring where we were going; just letting the mood take us.

“We came out from the underground into a completely different London. As we drew our jackets around us and looked up to the grey clouds threatening rain, we saw the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral and knew in an instant where we wanted to go.

“As we reached the steps we smiled at each other. A tourist took our photo. That photo. And seconds later the rain began. Great puddle-sized raindrops splashing on the white steps and the courtyard, pasting my hair to my head, squashing your Mama’s curls. For a moment we just laughed, each watching the other becoming wetter and wetter. Then we ran inside.

“We fell into silence, the only sound was our shoes squelching on the marble floors. Why this building made such an impression on me, I don’t know. I’d visited Nebuchadnezzar’s Palace, Abbassid Castle, Babylon, the Ishtar Gate, all of which, I’m sure, had an impact on me. But that day in June, something felt different.

“We climbed the steps to the whispering gallery, our hands clasped together, watching the windows above us darken as the thunder and lightning began. I felt exhilarated. But I felt safe. At the top, I let go of your Mama’s hand, asking her to wait as I walked round to the other side, stopping when I was opposite her. I turned into the wall, closed my eyes and whispered, the words carried around to her. Slowly I turned, my eyes flicking across, looking for her, and suddenly she was next to me, and she leaned in to reply to my whisper with a smile and a kiss.

“For hours we shared views on Wren’s architecture, read memorials, stared at tombs, marvelled over the history at our feet and our fingertips, and when finally we made our way outside, the sunshine had returned, stinging our eyes as they adjusted to the light.

“As we strolled through the streets of London, a strange sadness filled me. Sadness my studies had finished, sadness Iraq insisted I return so quickly, sadness at leaving this wonderful woman who walked at my side.

“I knew I would miss her; her smile, her laugh, her compassion and warmth and her company. But above all, just her. And as I watched the sunlight touch her make-up-free face and the breeze dance through her rain-splattered hair, I knew I would wait for her, and she for me. And I knew, when we finally saw each other again, what question I would be asking her.

“But at the same time I was worried. Would time blur away the edges of this love I felt for her? Would my memory be capable of holding on to it? Could my mind keep it fresh?

“I stared blankly into the window of a second-hand jewellery shop, and as I drew in a deep breath, determined to let nothing spoil this last day we had together for another year, my eyes came back into focus and I saw it. Staring up at me. An emerald; deep green, a sliver of orange, fine lines of black, speckles of gold. It was like staring into your Mama’s eyes.

“And as she leafed through a bookshop a few doors ahead, I snuck in and bought it, not telling her, but holding it close and keeping it close all the time we were apart. A reminder not just of that day, not just of the time we had spent together, and not just of her eyes looking deep into mine. But a reminder of what we shared, of our love, of what we were together.

“Years later, after she’d returned to Baghdad and we’d met up again, when I’d asked her that question and she’d accepted, when you had been growing inside her all that time and had finally been born, I gave it to her. Made into a necklace now with filigreed gold circling it, I hung that green stone around her neck and told her its story. And from that day, from when the nurse came into the room and took our first photograph together as a family, I never saw her without it. And I’m sure that she still has it now. Wherever she is.

“You know, Lina, this war,” he waved his hands around, “these Americans out on the street, the soldiers, I don’t hate them, I see them in their heavy uniforms, heavy guns, struggling in the heat they’re unaccustomed to, missing their families, their loved ones. I don’t hate them for the conflict they’ve brought to our country. They’re only following orders.” He shrugged. He closed the album and pushed it towards me. “Keep it safe,” he said.

As I sat in his bed that night he’d been killed, the photo album still on my lap, I wondered if he would blame the American soldiers now, if he would hate them now that he was dead. I cried as I turned the pages, wishing he was with me, and I missed him. I missed him. And I didn’t know what to do to stop that terrible emptiness in my chest.

Through my blurry eyes I saw a loose photo slide out; Mama in bed. A bundle in her arms.